Recently, issuers of credit cards, bank cards, merchant cards, etc. (collectively, “credit cards”) have begun to enclose “promotional cards” along with their application forms and other promotional literature as part of their mass mailing solicitations to potential consumers. The promotional cards are typically made to appear like an actual credit card of the card issuer in that the promotional cards often include the same color scheme, graphics and logos of both the issuer and the credit card brand (i.e. Visa, Mastercard, Discover, etc.). In addition, the promotional cards generally include embossed numbers in the same format as the embossed account number of an actual issued credit card. Thus, other than being made from thinner or different material, the promotional cards appear very similar to actual credit cards.
The current practice of making promotional cards involves first printing an array (such as, for example, eight rows and eight columns) of identical card images containing the desired color scheme, graphics, logos, and other information onto a large sheet of substrate material. The substrate material may be polyvinyl chloride (PVC), card stock, nylon, plastic or any other suitable material. The printed sheet containing the array of card images is hereinafter referred to as the “printed card sheet”. The printed card sheet may receive further processing such as the addition of a clear protective coat, the addition of metallic foil, or other treatments. Once printed, and after any other desired processing is completed, the printed card sheet is ready for embossing with simulated account numbers as previously discussed to further create the appearance of an actual credit card.
The embossing process involves placing the printed card sheet in an embossing press, the embossing press comprises a male embossing die and female counter-embossing die, each male and female die has an array of embossing numbers corresponding to the desired simulated account number to be embossed on each promotional card. On the male die, the embossing numbers are raised. On the female die, the embossing numbers are recessed. In operation, the male and female die are pressed together with the printed card sheet disposed in between. The male die forces the substrate to deform into the female die, resulting in an array of raised or embossed numbers in the printed card sheet (now hereinafter referred to as an “embossed sheet”).
After the embossing operation is completed, the embossed sheet is fed into a die cutter having cutting dies with a matching array of rows and columns to stamp or cut out the individual embossed promotional cards. The individual embossed promotional cards are removed from the remainder of sheet and then stacked for further processing.
As recognized in U.S. Pat. No. 7,029,547 (the '547 patent), which is incorporated herein by reference, after the embossed promotional cards are stacked into a hopper or card holder for further processing (such as for gluing the card to a carrier prior to packaging), adjacent cards in the stack often become interlocked as a result of the projecting embossed numbers nesting with the recessed numbers of the adjacent embossed promotional card. Once the cards become nested, it is difficult for the cards to be separated by automated feeding mechanisms for subsequent processing. As suggested by the '547 patent, one way to minimize the nesting of adjacent embossed cards is to offset the embossing in adjacent columns of the printed sheet (See FIG. 1), and then, after cutting the individual embossed cards from the remainder of the sheet, collating the individual cards such that each successive card in the stack has embossing that is offset from the previous card in the stack. While offsetting the embossing may serve the intended purpose of avoiding nesting of adjacent stacked cards, there remains a need for an improved method of producing embossed promotional cards which minimizes the nesting problem identified above but which does not require the offsetting of embossing between adjacent columns of the embossing die. There is also a need for a more efficient method of collating the embossed cards than that disclosed in the '547 patent.